Probing Questions

I need some help. I'm not afraid to ask for it. I reckon ye folkies out in blogland would have great ideas for great questions I can put to writers of a Sunday morning. So cmon - out with it! What would you ask... if you could ask anything at all. What are the best questions you've ever asked yourself? or been asked? I'm hoping my radio show will solve all the problems of the world, or if not at least go some way towards enlightening myself and my mam - who will be faithfully listening in on the world wide web. So make em good.

In the meantime please enjoy the photo of the sky above dubland - a result of our sky hunting session last saturday evening which came about when Mr VC claimed that dubland has only a tiny percentage of the amount of sky to be had in the West.

Inspiration

A very delayed response to the question what inspires you... from the Weaver of Grass blog (link here).

A good while back, a very very good friend of mine said something to me that I thought at the time was a bit of a put down, but I have since realised was one of the wisest things she has said, and she says alot of wise things, (even though she never reads this blog - so I'm not sure where all the wisdom comes from) (but btw in case she does ever read this I want to emphasise that I do love her to bits, and she's great)

What she said anyway was the following -

"It's so great the way you don't care whether your stuff is perfect, you'll just get up and say your poems anyway."

She had just seen me doing a poetry reading.

Would you have taken that badly?

I did. A little.

But then I realised that actually it is a bit great that I haven't so far and hopefully won't in future let fear of not being perfect paralyse me into not doing something I really want to do. And I've gone from being someone who looks and I quote another friend when I say "like a four year old that wants to go to the bathroom" just before a reading - to someone who looks like maybe an eight year old that wants to go to the bathroom, in less than a year.

So yeah, I'll continue, not caring if people think I'm crap, because there's absolutely no one out there that doesn't have someone who thinks they're crap, it's all so subjective. And if you don't try, you definitely won't get better. Don't let fear discourage you, better yet - harness any criticism/ knockbacks/ rejections you do get to inspire yourself - if someone just thinks you're average, not the best in the world at something - use that as the kick you needed to make you the absolute best you can be... you'll show em. Jujitso.

Today's life lesson is brought to you by the letter P for pretentious, pompous, and peurile. The number 3, and the fruit banana.

A Wait

I’m carrying a wait

A wait for something

Waiting for excitement,

For pressure, pleasure, disgust, disruption

Palpitation, punctuation : the thing that says when things are over

Or when things have begun.

I weigh it

The wait

It’s not too heavy.

Like clothes on your back, you can carry it

Cos it’s always there, like yourself,

your own bladder, your bones, hair,

all get heavier most of the time,

slowly heavier, but you can still carry

The wait gets heavier too, gradually, inexorably,

longer with every second.

So what are you waiting for?

789

It's today's date - I love dates and times that are symettrical, reflective, linear or concentrical or that have a pattern of any kind, could stare at a clock for hours waiting for the odd little pleasure to be got from seeing the display when it reads 12.21 or 20.02. I remember where I was on 6th of the 6th of 06, (lost driving a hire car around England). Actually - just realised 999 is coming up - which is bound to be just as exciting, or maybe even more so.

Being Patronising

So the great artwork of TFEs is about to leave us, depart on his round the world trip, as soon as I've saved up enough for the postage.
However - this house will not be empty of art, oh no. We bought our very first painting last friday at the genius Brian Hannigan's exhibition, it's my 30th Birthday present from Mr VC. I rather like it, he's really brilliant.

Anyways - it's one of the 3 above, all of which are from Brian H - guess which one - if you want - I might never tell you, those in the know Shhhh.

Mark of a Masterpiece

Something strange that I've noticed about "Man and Superman" - the genius work of art supplied on loan through Total Feckin Eejit's art in the community project - is that the Eye follows you wherever you go, no matter where you stand it looks like it is looking at you, staring into your very soul. I believe the Mona Lisa had the same problem.

Almost Vegetarian

In case you weren't able for a full quarter pounder - the nice people at this stall that shall remain nameless were offering not one, but two different varieties of 1/4 quarter pounders over the weekend.
Presumably they'd be cut in triangles like fancy sangwitches. And at a bargain price as well.

Poetry is the new going out

Here's "Man and Superman" hoping the sun would last all weekend
Here he is on the "Road Trip" - eyeing the clouds pensively, his earlier optimism quickly evaporating.

He grabbed a prime spot early on, determined to show himself to the public as advantageously as possible. People were very impressed.

Turned out our tent is an antique - barely used since my brother's leaving cert trip - the eye catching (perhaps literally) health and safety risking pointy sharp ends drew a large and admiring crowd. (The spike was a handy place to keep the empty Champagne bottle.)


We set "Man and Superman" the task of minding our free case of Band Beer - who said poetry doesn't pay? - a job he excelled at.

Our first performance was in the ballroom of the castle, a salubrious location, and our fabulous Audient member was very appreciative, she was joined by another 3 or 4 appreciative folk, along with the people stuck there for work reasons, who were listening intently, an intimate gig.


Here's "Man and Superman" relaxing in the green room - note famous band types being interviewed in the background. He got us into all the best parties.
On the Sunday we decided The Poetry Divas needed a bigger venue than the ballroom, we asked the organisers could we do our bit on the main stage - we actually needed half an hour in the first aid tent to recover when they said yes...
Time went by, second by gut wrenching second, until finally - genius DJ Rob slowed the music, to just the right tempo, got everyone into Poetry form, and then we took to the Stage.
Every inch the rockers, we had a suitably laid back, 2.30 on a Sunday evening, slightly bleary but appreciative crowd, the weather held up, we had microphones, the camp site is so near the main stage that even the dozers could hear us. I had a bit of audience participation with a child helpfully screaming at the first line of Techno Tribes - demonstrating that children do indeed scream, we even had some crusty roadies to the side of the stage shouting up "One more Poem" at the end. It was fairly cool.
Here's a kinda creepy pic of us - taken by the lead singer of Killer Chloe, in the green room of the castle, our faces didn't really come out - it could of been sun, or it might've been the fact that the castle is reputed to be one of the most haunted in Europe, we only found that out last night on wikipedia.
The best new discovery in terms of bands was "Project Jenny, Project Jan" link here, saw them twice over the weekend, energetic amazing band, we all bought their cd. They were class.
It was fairly rockin good fun, had a blast of a weekend with the Divas and our very own "il Divo" extraordinaire. Thanks to "Man and Superman" for accompanying us on our mission - the weekend wouldn't have been the same without him - keep an eye on Total Feckin Eejit's blog to see where he's gonna end up next!! - (An Art in the Community initiative by TFE 2009 Inc.)

The Superman Effect

So - Superman arrived in Dubland, safe and sound and smelling fragrant, here's a quick vid of him, all correctly assembled and being admired by Minky, Pinky and Laverne, his new friends. He is quite the masterpiece - from the genius hands of Total Feckin Eejit (link here) , it's called "Man and Superman" and I'm very honoured to host him on his Worldwide tour - think he's off to England next, and a few North American stops after that, so make sure you volunteer to host him too - hint hint finnish & thailand based readers!! - Contact TFE for more details.



Anyway - he was last seen on the Watercats (link here) excellent blog where he apparently brought them all kinds of great good fortune, and not that I'm superstitious or anything (link here), but.... well .... things are particularly sunny from where I'm sitting at the moment.

Firstly: I'm off with The Poetry Divas to "play" Castlepalooza this weekend, we just held our preperformance consultation meeting and found out that we all have the same shoe size, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT?!?!? And we then worked out that we can actually - all three of us - wear - between us all - two odd units each out of a set of three pairs of wellies, so that we all are wearing one boot in common with the other two. This was late on in the meeting, so it did take a diagram to work it out...
but we got there in the end. So anyway - we have our set all planned and all so it's gonna be fabtastic.
Secondly: I've been given a slot to do a radio show on local radio - all about the arts, written word etc etc so that's gonna be mad altogether, will let you know how to tune me in when I find out. I have absolutely zero radio experience, and hate my own voice, but love talking to writers, listening to them read, playing cool musak, (ignoring that disco fever episode) etc etc
Thirdly: Leonard C saw yesterday's blog and has asked for the tape with me singing over it, and says I didn't wreck it at all and actually does want me to sing with him onstage at his next few gigs. (or did I dream that one?)

Anyway - Man and Superman - welcome, settle in there, we'll go for adventures at the weekend and report back to the nice people on Monday.

Mr C

So Leonard insisted I get up and sing at his concert there last week




That's me on the left, in the pitch black darkness.

Ok - no it's not, but I couldn't get ye a vid of him without me singing all over it, WRECKING it.

So there ya go, there'll be no singing this weekend when I go off for my first ever camping over night musical festival experience... Strictly poetry, and strict poetry at that. (although by the time we get through our free box o' beer, you never know, after all - it only took the one bottle of Miller between us to get us looking like this...)


There's a free sweetie going on Uiscebots blog if you can match all three divas to their blogs.